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Do you seriously ask why someone likes $PRETTY? It's like asking why are they using a desktop wallpaper, when a black color works as well.

Normally I'd agree but a screensaver is just unnecessary - compiz is eye candy but a lot of it has functionality, and if you're going to use compiz for those extra abilities you might as well go all-out on graphics. With desktop wallpapers, it's just common sense to have a picture there because otherwise your screen is just blank with some icons here and there and images don't really affect performance no matter how crappy your system is. Screensavers however are just a waste of system resources, albiet not much but they tend to only show up when you're not around, so you could just save power by having the monitor turn off instead. It doesn't take long for an LCD screen to turn on.

One of the things I really liked about GNOME 2 is you could use screensavers as your desktop wallpaper and you could run programs on top of them. Set the "nice" level really low and you don't have to worry about the prettier screensavers eating up your CPU and GPU.

I see the thread spinning off topic (again), so to end the discussion about screen savers : I shortened and thus completely lost the meaning of my catalyst complaint. It isn't specifically about screen savers, but about the screen power saving mode (aka DPMS standby). Once it drops there, I have to restart the PC.

I kind of get the impression that Valve's developers don't know openGL that well. They seem to know it well enough to use convert from D3D but that's about the extent of it. While OpenGL may be relatively difficult to use compared to something like D3D, making contributions to the library is incomparably harder; you can't just jump into it. I like to compare it to sending a rocket into space vs. sending a rocket into space and then making it land in a specific location somewhere else.

Point taken, and I'll be happy if they report bugs and help those in the know to fix them. If any Valve people are reading : I salute your efforts, this is a big win for linux. However, I'm inclining to being an OSS purist, and I'm beginning to have a problem when I have to install a blob, so take my comments with a grain of salt.